Asian Literary Voices: From Marginal to Mainstream - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9089640924 ISBN 13: 9789089640925

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press, 2011

Synopsis

The essays in this collection give voice to a wide range of artists and writers from China, Japan, Korea, and India who to this day remain largely unknown or poorly understood in literary circles around the world. Contributors from Asia, Europe, and the United States cover a wide range of topics from a vast expanse of time, from Sanskrit poetry dating back over a thousand years to Chinese fiction of the twenty-first century.

About this title

About the Author

Philip F. Williams is professor of Chinese language and culture at the Mansfield Center, University of Montana.

Review

''Whereas recent scholarship on China has become more and more theory-oriented, this collection's philological approach is most welcome, as it presents the general reader with informative, critical articles on current issues. The contributions on the literary portrayal of rural-to-urban migrants and the phenomenon of 'bad-girl writers' deal with prominent themes in present-day Chinese literature. Those on the origins of European sinology and on Malraux's China-set novel Man's Fate uncover Western biases in the study of Chinese culture which are still relevant today.''[-]Dr Mark Leenhouts, author of Han Shaogong and Chinese Roots-seeking Literature (2005)[-][-]"Professor Williams is to be congratulated for producing this excellent book of essays representing the best of the conference volume genre. Its ten articles, six of them on twentieth-century China, evince the highest quality of recent research on increasingly mainstream Asian literary voices. The scope is truly impressive. It includes a reinterpretation of some Sanskrit women writers, concepts of the ideal lover, historical fiction and elite women's reading in Choson Korea and Meiji Japan, how Europeans invented 'Sinology,' reevaluations of Bing Xin's works and Andr� Malraux's vision of the Chinese Revolution, fin-de-si�cle Chinese 'bad girl' exhibitionist fiction, and a particularly significant study of the changing image of Chinese migrant laborers from atomized individuals to networking social protesters. There is something new and important to be learned from each of these essays. I strongly recommend this book to comparative literature specialists and all those interested in Greater Asia."[-]Michael S. Duke Professor Emeritus of Chinese and Comparative Literature at University of British Columbia[-][-]"Asian Literary Voices presents a captivating panoply of novel approaches to Asian Literature. Ranging across a wide expanse from South Asia to Northeast Asia, the ten inquisitive and energetic authors explore a variety of topics from Bad-Girl Writers in contemporary China to Sanskrit poetesses in medieval India, from urban migration to avant-garde theater, and from genre paintings to writing systems. Readers of this ample volume will discover a rich assortment of eye-opening and hitherto unexplored Asian literary realms."[-]Victor H. Mair Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Pennsylvania[-][-]"This engaging collection of well-written and painstakingly researched essays by some of today's leading scholars in the broader field of Asian studies illuminates a wide range of concerns and themes in literary and creative works, contemporary and pre-modern, that have not been accorded the recognition and acclaim they deserve. By bringing to the forefront numerous hitherto marginalized Asian voices and narratives, these studies invite us to view these societies and cultures through new eyes. The trail these scholars have blazed with their individual essays is bound to stimulate further interest and research in the various academic specialties to which their essays pertain, making an important contribution to deepening our understanding of how Asian civilizations have evolved not only through their contact with the West but with one another as well."[-]Timothy R. Bradstoc, Professor of Chinese, The University of Montana[-][-]

Edition details

• Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 9089640924
• ISBN 13: 9789089640925
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 168
• Editor: Williams Philip F.